Confident Taipans
DON’T waste a moment.
Variations of that four-word statement will be the driving message from Taipans coach Adam Forde in his second season at the club.
The critics haven’t been kind to the Taipans but Forde hasn’t wasted his energy on power rankings and predictions ahead of the Snakes’ first games.
Cairns, as has been the case in recent years, is not among the teams predicted to finish inside the top six, with plenty of experts tipping the Taipans to be at or near the bottom for NBL23.
And Forde isn’t concerned by what those outside of his team thinks they can achieve.
It comes down to what his team believes they can do in his second season in the tropics.
“We set our own expectations,” Forde said.
“Our expectation is only restricted with what we set our minds to.
“There’s no reason why we can’t make top six. There’s no reason why we can’t be playing post-season, finals.
“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that we stay relatively healthy and we keep bodies on the floor, and progress collectively as a team.
“But I also put it on the individual to bring it every day, bring the work ethic, bring the desire, don’t waste a practice session, don’t waste a day, don’t waste a possession.”
As for the unkind predictions, Forde is happy for his players to use it as motivation if they want to, but he is keen to see what his unheralded squad can do.
They must first navigate a rough start with six road games from their first nine fixtures, and the men in orange have to be ready to make a statement from the first tip-off.
“We’ll use it as motivation for guys who want to use it as fire,” he said.
“But we set our own expectations and standards, and we have a lot of unknowns, we’re aware of that.
“People don’t understand the capability of DJ (Hogg) and Shannon (Scott) and after a couple of rounds they’ll quickly realise it.
“We have a tough stretch, of our first nine games, six of them are on the road, so we want to use that as a motivator in that we can’t ease into the season.
“Tough start to the schedule, whether it’s fair or not, it will leave us on the outside looking in if we don’t show our competitiveness straight away. If they want to use it as motivation, go for it. We’ll set the bar for ourselves.”